Find your new beginning with God in 2016
"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor."
(Luke 4:18-9; Isaiah 61:1-2a ESV)
As a kid, New Year's Eve was Labor Day evening and New Year's Day was the following Tuesday.
School began.
There was a nice, clean break from the old. The old year was far behind, with a nice summer vacation in between. Now we had a fresh new year with a new backpack, new textbooks, new notebooks, pencils, pens, and crayons lined up perfectly in their box. It was exciting and new.
As an adult, New Year's Eve begins with a party and quickly falls into whimper mode when we go back to the world of responsibility.
We have new payments to pay, old taxes to file, new budgets to follow, and old habits to break.
The worst part is, there is no clean break.
Last year's challenges do not magically disappear when the new year begins. They linger on.
The only new and novel item is the calendar you pick up at the kiosk in the mall. I miss my childhood.
Jesus makes reference to a passage from Isaiah which states, among many other great things, a single sentence referring to the tradition of Jubilee. In Luke 4:19, "to proclaim a year of the Lord's favor," Jesus affirms the great tradition of his people. Every seven years there is a Sabbatical year, a new break.
Individual debts are forgiven, and there is a new beginning. After seven-times-seven years, 49 years, the 50th year is a Jubilee, the year of the Lord's favor. Entire nations have their debts forgiven and entire peoples are set free for a new beginning. The fact that Jesus makes reference to this says he, too, is a believer in clean breaks and new beginnings.
Society will never satisfy our desire for a clean break and a new beginning. The people of Israel, as a society, made a concerted effort to bring in the Sabbaticals and Jubilees, but our society lets the old linger on from generation to generation. We will have to look outside of society to find our sabbaticals and jubilees, our clean breaks, our new beginnings.
The good news is God is all about new beginnings.
Every time we call on God for forgiveness, we receive that Amazing Grace! God sets aside the old and sets us free with a new beginning. You won't find this gift any other place than the place of faith.
If you long for new beginnings this year, make a New Year's resolution. Find a place to worship and ask God to enter your heart. You will discover many great things. You may even relive your childlike joy.
God is all about new beginnings. Find your new beginning with God.
This story was originally published December 5, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Find your new beginning with God in 2016 ."